The Taks have reached the next level of the campaign where what goes into the tiffin boxes will be analysed by Dietician Aditi Mehrotra.

But first, let’s back up a little bit. The Taks began the journey by disclosing their daily diet routine to us, followed by Aditi giving her detailed analysis about their eating habits.

Karan, his father and daughter Hemashree take tiffins to work/school. Every morning, Ruhi wakes up to pack them a good, nutritious meal.

peeped into their tiffin boxes and gave her detailed insight!

Her Analysis:

Hemashree’s Tiffin

Planning and packing tiffin boxes for these little devils seem quite a task for most mothers. If they at their end, are packing in a carefully thought-out healthy tiffin, the child may just come back home with an uneaten tiffin only because he or she wants to carry the kind of a tiffin comprising of junk food that others are bringing from home. 

The tiffin looks a bit confusing to me. There is a stuffed parantha with a vegetable that has little gravy as well. In addition to this, there is pulaav. Too many portions from the same Cereals group! I see no fruit. I see no colours as such.  It lacks the eye appeal. Children crave for junk food which is high on appeal and is good in taste. 

School brunch or lunch, in my opinion, is the most important meal for any child. The child needs to be fuelled in the morning as the last meal happens to be dinner from the previous day. It should be completely well-balanced with a fresh fruit and dairy product such as cheese in cubes or cheese slice or paneer, corn or sprouted daals, good quality carbs in the form of multigrain sandwiches or rawa idlies with pureed spinach or carrot

Karan’s tiffin

His tiffin seems imbalanced consisting no salads, dairy-curd or paneer. He seems a hardcore Rajasthani food lover with gatte ki sabzi as the main entree dish in his tiffin. So there is pulaav and dry puffed rice mixture as well in the tiffin. 

Now the verdict: Indian style of cooking vegetables robs the dishes off the nutrients. You end up eating vegetables but they are low on their nutrient content. If office lunch is from the tiffin centre and you do not have much choice than to eat the same patterned meal, I strongly recommend, make dinner nutrient dense. It’s quite simple. Get your dinner fixed with enriching soups and pan tossed veggies. This is light on the tummy towards the fag end of the day. Will be absorbed faster and will be nutrient dense. You can add any form of protein with grilled paneer or tofu or grilled chicken. In Indian style, you can do a subz Biryani with brown rice, Bulghar or broken wheat/daliya or makkai ka daliya or use quinoa or couscous. You can do veggie wraps made with ground Oats along with the soup. Dinners are all about more and more in less and less. Go for one meal bowls. Eat with fork and ditch the spoon. Eat in bowls instead of the huge Jaipuri thaals with 5 katories.

The campaign has moved forward to the last phase of the “ChEAT With Aditi”!  Expect to mess up a 5-star hotel’s kitchen, driving the chef crazy among other things! Watch this space on Monday for the upcoming fun!